Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1887-01-07

49, IL 1Aot no Was AmSTICaU,
aho VS. In his homely form were first
gsSii'' q The vast and thrilling forces
Oh s"ss ideal government-eh charging it
/ WI Sach tremendous meaning and so
eie ~ il above human suffering that
MARI dom, though UNANIMOUSLY aimed,
eaniSsss fitting crown to life conse-
CRATE from the cradle to human liberty.
| LIZ sseaking to the toast with which Yon
ilayef1anored me accept the term, The
New South, as in no sense dlsparaging
20 TIE cid. Dear to me, sir, is the home
{ OF no. childhood and the traditions of my
peoEsss There is new South. not through
protfa against the DID, but because OF new
CONG ions, new adjustments, and, if you
plea (, lew ideas and aspirations. 1T is
! to t. { II ! address myself. 1 ask you,
f,l3lti n q. to picture if you can the foot
~ 4 'tsacsas llalo lei
gray Jacket the parole wnion was tsliel..
testimony to his children of his fidelity and
faith, turned his face southwark from
Appomattox in April, 1885. Think of him
as ragged. half-starved. heavy bearded,
enfeebled by want and wounds, having
fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his
gnn, Wrings the hands of his comrades,
and lifting his tear-stained and paid face
for the last time to the graves that dot the
old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over
his brow and begins the slow and painful
Journey. What does he find-let me ask
hn roy,t 70 how 70
find all the welcomeyou had justly earned,
full payment for four years. sacrifice
what does he fnd when he reaches the
home he left four years before He finds
his house in ruins, his farm devastated :,
his slaves freed, his stock killed, his barns
empty, his trade destroyed, bis money
worthless, his social system, feudal in its
magni6cence, swept away; his people
without law or legal status. his comrades
slain, and the burdens of others heavy on
his shoulder. Crushed by defeat, his very
traditions gone, without money. credit :,
employment, material, or training-and,
besides all this, confronted with the
grayest problem that ever met hu man in
telligence-the establishing OF status
for the vast body of his liberated slaves,
what does he do, this hero in gray, with a
heart of gold ?
Does he sit down in sullenn ess, IN des-
pair? Not for day. Surely, God, who
had scourged him in his prosperity, in
spired him in his adversely! AS ruin was
never before SO overwhelming, never was
restoration Swifter. The soldier stepped
from the trenches into the furrow; horses
that had charged Federal guns marched
before the plough. and fields that ran red
with human blood in April were green
with the harvest in June; women reared
in luxury cut up their dresses and made
breeches for their husbands, and with a
patience and heroism that fits woman al
ways as garment, gave their hands to
work. There was little bitterness in all
this. Cheerfulness and frankness pre-
Ysiled. Bill Arp struck the keynote
I when he said: We'll, killed as many OF
them as they did of me. and now 1 am
going to work Or the soldier, returning
home after defeat and roasting some corn
on the roadside, who made the remark to
his comrades: 'You may leave the South
if you want to, but am going to Sanders
Vile, kiss my wife, and raise crop, and
if the Yankees fool with me any more 1
will whip em again. ! want TO say to
/ Gen. Sherman-who is considered an able
man in our par5s. though some people
think he IS kind of careless man about
| fire-that from the ashes left us in 1854,
we have raised brave and beautiful city;
G..lat somehow or other We have caught
the sunshine in the bricks and mortar of
our homes and have builded therein not
one single ignoble prejudice Or memory.
But what is the sum Of our work? We
have found out that in the general sum
ming up the free negro counts more than
he did AS slave. We have planted the
school house on the hill top and made it
free to white and black. We have sowed
towns and cities IN the place OF theories
and put business above politics We have
challenged your spinners in Massachusetts
We have learned thai the $400, 900 900 an
nuaIly received from our cotton crop will
make Us rich, when the supplies that make
it are homo raised. We have reduced the
commercial rate of interest from "a to 6 per
cent, aud are floating per cent. bonds.
We have learned that one Northern immi-
grant is worth more than fifty foreigners,
and have smoothed the path to South
ward, wiped out the place where Mason
and Dixon's line used TO be, and hung out
our latch string to you and yours. We
have reached the point that marks perfect
harmony IN every household, when the
husband confesses that the pies which his
own wife COOKS are as good as those his
sun shines as brightly and the moon as
softly as it did before the war; We have
established thrift in city and country. We
have fallen in love with work. We have
restored comfort to homes from which
culture and elegance never departed. We
have let economy take root and spread
among US as rank as the crab grass which
sprang from Sherman's cavalry camps,
until we are ready to lay odds on the
Georgia Yankee as he squeezss pure olive
oil out of his cotton seed, against any
Down-Easter that ever snapped wooden
nutmegs for flannel sausages in the val
leys of Vermont.
Above all, we know that we have
achieved in these piping times of peace a
fuller independence for the South than
that which our fathers sought to win In
the forum by their eIoquence Or compel
privilege, sir, to have had a part, however
humble. in this work, Never was .nobIer